GHSA-q8qp-67f9-wr3f SurrealDB vulnerable to Denial of Service due to nested types annotations

Not scored Published

An authenticated attacker can crash the SurrealDB server by sending queries with deeply nested type annotations, exhausting memory.

Exploited in the wild
Not known
Login needed
Any signed-in user
Attackable
Over the internet
Victim action needed
Not needed
Fix
Available

What is GHSA-q8qp-67f9-wr3f?

GHSA-q8qp-67f9-wr3f is a denial of service vulnerability in surrealdb, published on 1 Jul 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

The SurrealDB type/kind parser did not enforce the configured recursion depth limit when parsing nested type annotations. The expression parser already enforced the limit for analogous constructs; the kind parser omitted it. An authenticated attacker could send a query with deeply nested type annotations (e.g., array<option<array<option<...>>>>) and exhaust server memory, crashing the process.

This is an incomplete fix for GHSA-6r8p-hpg7-825g, which addressed the same class of bug in the expression parser but did not cover the kind/type annotation parser code path.

Impact

An authenticated user with query execution privileges can crash a SurrealDB server with a single WebSocket message containing deeply nested type annotations.

Patches

A patch has been introduced that wraps parse_concrete_kind and the OPTION<...> arm of parse_inner_kind with enter_object_recursion!, bounding the recursive cycle parse_concrete_kind → parse_inner_kind → parse_inner_single_kind → parse_concrete_kind at the configured object_recursion_limit (default 100). Regression tests cover both cast and DEFINE FIELD paths.

  • Versions 3.1.0 and later are not affected by this issue.

Workarounds

Restrict the ability of untrusted users to execute arbitrary queries via the --deny-arbitrary-query capability flag for the affected user classes (guest, record, or system). Disabling untrusted access to the WebSocket /rpc endpoint also prevents exploitation; the HTTP /sql endpoint's 1 MiB body limit constrains nesting to a depth where OOM is not feasible.

Which versions are affected by GHSA-q8qp-67f9-wr3f?

2 open source packages ship an affected version, including surrealdb.

PackageAffectedFixed in
surrealdb crates.ioAll versions3.1.0
surrealdb crates.ioAll versions3.1.0

How do I fix GHSA-q8qp-67f9-wr3f?

Upgrade surrealdb to 3.1.0 or later.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is GHSA-q8qp-67f9-wr3f being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of GHSA-q8qp-67f9-wr3f in the wild and no public exploit code.

Sources

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